


Other Means of Flight

by hiddencait



Category: Avatar (2009)
Genre: Blind Character, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Ikrans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 10:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3806290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddencait/pseuds/hiddencait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It seems to him that Trudy is twice as brave as Norm feels most days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Other Means of Flight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Floranna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Floranna/gifts).



> So admittedly I haven't seen Avatar in quite a while, but I loved it when I did and I totally shipped Norm/Trudy hard. So, I was thrilled to see it requested by Floranna.
> 
> In the letter, it was mentioned that she's love to see one of the characters disabled, but without any magic healing. I'm a little nervous this might have been on the edge of the magic healing thing, but Trudy doesn't not regain her sight - she just has a little cannon-esque help. Hopefully it will still work for what Floranna was hoping for. Also, she specifically mentioned she'd like to see Tsu'tey surviving to become chief. Since I am all about the everybody!lives method of ficwriting, that worked perfectly for me.
> 
> I really hope you enjoy the fic Floranna! It was a delight to write for.
> 
> BTW, since I was getting this done pretty last minute, I wasn't able to get it to either of my betas. Therefore all mistakes are mine - I did edit, but I know I always miss at least something, especially when a fic insists on being in present tense the way this one did.

Trudy takes to being blind the way she takes to everything, with a fierce determination and an unwavering confidence that she can handle things on her own if she has to.

 

It’s the second that drives Norm crazy from day to day, the way she forgets to let him help her, or simply fails to understand that he _needs_ to help her. She forgets sometimes that she’s got a partner now, that she chose a lanky nerd to keep her company during her nights and who can’t help but hover by her side during her days.

 

He worries he drives her crazy too with his constant presence, but her nearness is a talisman he can’t quite let go of.

 

He wasn’t close enough to see it, the moment her baby was hit and sank like a stone in Pandora’s sky. He heard it though, heard what he thought were her last words: a calm if slightly annoyed apology to Jake for leaving the battle.

 

_“Rogue One is hit. I’m going in. Sorry, Jake.”_

It was the silence in her comm that nearly killed him as much as the shot to his avatar’s body, the loss of her voice in his ear that sent his body sprawling across the jungle floor and his mind jolting back to his human form.

 

He knows, _he knows,_ she’s here alive and safe if not quite as well as she once was, with a pilot’s wings out of her reach forever. But when he sleeps at night, all he can see are the deaths he imagines one by one: the chopper exploding, the eject sequence failing, an ikran being just a few wingbeats too far away.

 

Norm owes Tsu’tey her life. Had the young chieftain not chosen to turn from his assault and leap for her when he did, it would not have mattered that Trudy, even in blinding pain after her instrument panel exploded, had managed to hit the switch and eject out before Rogue One went up in a fiery blast. It was still a long, long way down to Pandora’s jungle floor. Had Tsu’tey and his ikran not caught her, there would have been little left of Trudy upon impact.

 

It’s part of the reason Norm stays after the battle when so many of his colleagues are marched onto shuttles and sent back to earth. Tsu’tey’s hold on the tribe leadership is shaky. Not his fault, of course, but there are some of the Na’vi whose mourning has turned to resentment, never mind that every one of them had agreed to follow Jake into battle. It had been Tsu’tey’s voice who gave them their terms, and for some, that is all that matters even now.

 

It doesn’t help that Tsu’tey is still adamant that the few human fighters on their side should be allowed to remain and live amongst the Na’vi.

 

Never mind that they’d helped to free Pandora of her human enemies; never mind that some of those humans had fought with them; and never mind that Jake could never return to a human body again.

Some of the Na’vi still see only the enemy when faced with a human. Still see the people who tried so desperately to destroy an entries species along with the planet that species called home.

 

Norm can’t blame them for the resentment, honestly, but he can do all he could to support his new tribal chieftain.

 

Especially if it means Trudy can stay, too. Can begin to heal.

 

Not that she gives any impression of needing to. Sometimes when he isn’t looking at her face to face and can’t see that striking silvery mask of scars across her eyes and the bridge of her nose, he almost forgets what she’d lost in the battle.

 

 

What’s strange to him is that _she_ seems to forget fairly often, maneuvering without hesitation about their carefully enclosed living quarters that their new fellow tribesmen had helped them to scavenge and rebuild from what was left of the main base. She’s less clumsy than he is, honestly. It’s rare a day goes by that her laughter doesn’t ring out after his curses from stubbing his toe on this or running into that. She never stumbles, though. Norm has no idea how she’s managed to map her new surrounding so quickly, but there’s no denying she’s done it.

 

Trudy knows their home as clearly as she used to know the feel of her baby in the air and the instruments right at her fingertips, and for the life of him, Norm can’t make himself understand how.

 

It’s honestly frightens him sometimes just how easily she finds her way out in the jungle, too, both on the forest floor and up in the canopies, striding easily through the treetops along narrow passages that still have him wishing for a safety line every time they cross. All Norm can see in his mind’s eye is a misstep of her confident feet and a long fall that this time won’t end in her rescue and safe return to him.

 

Neytiri is no help when he goes to her for advice. She tells him to trust, to listen for Eywa’s guidance as she believes Trudy has learned to. Norm wants to believe it’s possible, that Trudy could have found a way to see with other senses than the ones she was born dependent on.

 

It feels too much like a miracle for him to trust it, never mind that Jake is still walking and talking in a body he never should have been able to remain in without the active technology to maintain the neural link. If that isn’t a Pandoran miracle, Norm doesn’t know what is.

 

Unless, perhaps, it’s this moment before him: standing on the edge of a cliff and trying not to panic as his Trudy takes a few slow careful steps to the side of an ikran, hands held carefully before her, ready for contact instead of forcing it upon the beast. She’s been here before, for six days in total, always with Norm and one of the Na’vi to watch and step in should her presence be taken as a threat by the flying predators. It hasn’t been necessary since the second day, and even then, Norm is sure it was only due to the strangeness of her face behind the exo-suit mask that kept the creatures on guard. Still, the beasts dwarf Trudy and her diminutive (even for a human) form, and Norm fears that between any one moment and the next, one of the ikran might remember the woman could easily be prey.

 

But they haven’t yet. Not yet. Maybe not ever. And for now, at least, most of the flight barely seem to notice the woman’s presence. All but one. That one has been inching a little closer to Trudy each day, seemingly fascinated by the fearless woman in its nest.

 

 _This is madness_ , Norm thinks and not for the first time. He has moments where he is close to hating Jake for putting the idea of another chance at flight in her head. Trudy has no queue to connect herself to an ikran or direhorse. There’s no conduit for Eywa’s force to link her and this creature stretching and fluttering its wings, clearly flirting with the human before it, not that Trudy can see its antics. She doesn’t need to, Norm thinks, awed more than a little by this fearless woman whose chosen him to stand by her side.

 

No, his Trudy doesn’t need to see the ikran before her; _it_ sees _her_ , instead. Norm finds himself holding his breath as the winged creature eases closer to his lover inch by torturous inch before carefully, so carefully, sliding its head beneath Trudy’s fingers. Her smile is just barely visible through her faceplate, and Norm can feel his own lips curving to answer hers.

 

The ikran bobs its head sharply up startling a laugh out of Trudy which startles the ikran in turn. It jerks away, but Trudy just shakes her head.

 

“That’s all right, baby. We’ll try again tomorrow. We’ll try it again.”

 

She reaches behind her this time, and Norm takes her hand without hesitation. He can’t give her flight again, or return her sight to her, but he can give her this: a hand in hers whenever she reaches for it. He’ll give Trudy his support, whenever she lets him. This time she does let him, and it’s enough. Her hand in his will always be enough.

 

“We’ll try it again tomorrow,” Trudy says again, and Norm squeezes her hand in response.

 

There will always be tomorrow. That too, is enough for him.

 


End file.
